Film Freak Centraltag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-999282957331064452016-12-07T21:28:13-05:00TypePadNocturnal Animals (2016)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d243ae7f970c2016-12-07T21:28:13-05:002016-12-07T21:40:49-05:00**½/**** starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson screenplay by Tom Ford, based on the novel Tony and Susan, by Austin Wright directed by Tom Ford by Walter Chaw It opens with an already-notorious slow-motion consideration of a gallery of morbidly-obese women in tiny cowboy hats, naked and holding sparklers while gyrating to Abel Korzeniowski's moody, derivative score. Not long after, someone will comment how, as an art installation, it's a withering indictment of junk culture, in response to which our ostensible heroine Susan (Amy Adams) intones, "Junk. It's all junk." As self-awareness goes, this is as hollow as the rest of Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, a dirge of shallow introspection and sanctified ugliness that is, as it happens, a pretty trenchant critique of the landscape that would normalize a Trump presidency. Consider that the installation isn't "junk" so much as the kind of conversation people of a certain intuition might have about the limitations of media to sell something biology rejects. It's a tentative salvo into the nature/nurture debate and the extent to which popular culture can influence the innate. The answer? It can, a little. More often, it merely gratifies/reflects the base. Calling it "junk" reveals...Walter ChawBlack Swan (2010)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d23fd37a970c2016-12-03T00:01:00-05:002016-11-29T22:19:29-05:00****/**** starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey screenplay by Andres Heinz and Mark Heyman and John McLaughlin directed by Darren Aronofsky by Walter Chaw She's incapable of reaching climax throughout the first hour of Black Swan, but then the floodgates open in the most Keatsian work in Darren Aronofsky's growing portfolio of Romanticist explorations. Call it a ballet of the consummation sublime, the idea that once achieved, the immediate disappointment and disgust for the act overwhelms the sexual release of the moment before--and watch Black Swan in a lovelorn double-feature with Jane Campion's Bright Star for the full impact of Aronofsky's achievement here. As a thriller, Black Swan doesn't do much more than graft a few phantom frames onto the periphery of Jean Benoit-Levy's Ballerina, Altman's The Company, or Powell/Pressburger's The Red Shoes--but note how the picture owes its creepy intensity to the sort of social satire-through-body horror popularized by David Cronenberg. (Though it's Cronenberg as fever dream rather than as insectile chill.) Note, too, how Natalie Portman finally finds herself the actor she was always considered to be in a role that breaks her legs and feet, forces her to masturbate and self-mutilate, and in the...Walter ChawVulgar (2002) - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01bb0950b7e0970d2016-11-18T00:01:00-05:002016-11-08T20:37:38-05:00ZERO STARS/**** Image C+ Sound B+ Extras A starring Brian Christopher O'Halloran, Jerry Lewkowitz, Matthew Maher, Ethan Suplee written and directed by Bryan Johnson by Walter Chaw Beginning as Shakes the Clown and segueing into I Spit on Your Grave before finally settling on Death to Smoochy, the discordant, hideously unpleasant Vulgar is the kind of puerile vanity piece that gives exploitation and egotism bad names. Produced by Kevin Smith and seeking to be a creation mythology for Smith's View Askew mascot (just another example of Smith overestimating the inherent interest in his cult of personality), the picture is the hyphenate debut for Smith crony Bryan Johnson, making Smith, along the way, just the next nepotistic "Happy Madison" pinhead king of diminished returns. RUNNING TIME 87 minutes MPAA Unrated ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.78:1 (16x9-enhanced) LANGUAGES English DD 5.1 CC Yes SUBTITLES English Spanish REGION 1 DISC TYPE DVD-9 STUDIO Lions Gate Flappy (Brian O'Halloran) is a put-upon Yellow Pages clown who gets ridiculed by his foul, nursing-home-bound mother and all manner of neighbourhood wags. Seeking to metastasize his floundering career, Flappy decides to be a "blue" clown, dons dominatrix gear, redubs himself "Vulgar," and wanders into a seedy motel--which is, of...Walter ChawLa Femme Nikita (1990) + Killing Zoe (1994) - DVDs|La Femme Nikita - Blu-ray Disctag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b7c8ad5811970b2016-11-17T00:01:00-05:002016-11-19T11:18:32-05:00Nikita ***/**** BD - Image A- Sound B+ DVD - Image B Sound A- (English)/B (French) starring Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Tcheky Karyo, Jeanne Moreau written and directed by Luc Besson KILLING ZOE ***/**** Image A Sound B starring Eric Stoltz, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Julie Delpy, Gary Kemp written and directed by Roger Avary by Bill Chambers When DVD screeners of La Femme Nikita and Killing Zoe arrived concurrently in my mailbox, I thought I had an angle for a piece: actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, a co-star in both films. I began taking notes, asking myself how they fit into his oeuvre and whether, viewed in tandem, these actioners represent career progression. That's when I realized: What I know about the work of Jean-Hugues Anglade you could fit on the head of a pin; I've only seen him in one other performance, as Zorg in Betty Blue (a.k.a. 37°2 le matin), a movie with obvious but ultimately superficial parallels to La Femme Nikita. So howzabout this for a thematic compromise? Nikita (its native title) and Killing Zoe each take place in France--that's as good a link between them as Anglade. RUNNING TIME 117 minutes MPAA R ASPECT RATIO(S) 2.35:1 (1080p/MPEG-4) LANGUAGES English...Bill ChambersI'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2004) - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d23547d6970c2016-11-11T00:01:00-05:002016-11-02T16:21:28-05:00***½/**** Image A Sound B starring Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Malcolm McDowell screenplay by Trevor Preston directed by Mike Hodges by Walter Chaw Mike Hodges has only made a handful of films in the last three decades, even disowning a couple of them along the way because they were taken from him and edited to accommodate someone else's vision. Hodges's first film is the legendary revenge flick Get Carter featuring a never-better Michael Caine, and his latest, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, functions very much as a bookend to his directorial debut: it's the tale of a man of few words on a mission to avenge a wrong. Reuniting Hodges with Clive Owen, star of his modest hit Croupier, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is beautifully-lensed by long-time DP Michael Garfath in a manner that, although the picture was shot in London, looks extraordinarily like an Edward Hopper painting. Hodges, beyond being a narrative stylist, has evolved into something of a visual stylist as well. In this way, he suggests a British Wim Wenders. RUNNING TIME 103 minutes MPAA R ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.85:1 (16x9-enhanced) LANGUAGES English DD 5.1 English Dolby Surround CC Yes SUBTITLES English REGION 1...Walter ChawOne Last Score (2002) + The Shipment (2002) - DVDstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01bb094e2565970d2016-11-05T23:01:00-05:002016-11-01T20:41:04-05:00If... Dog... Rabbit */**** Image C+ Sound C starring Matthew Modine, John Hurt, Kevin O'Connor, David Keith written and directed by Matthew Avery Modine THE SHIPMENT ZERO STARS/**** Image C Sound C- starring Matthew Modine, Elizabeth Berkley, Nick Turturro, Paul Rodriguez screenplay by Rich Steen directed by Alex Wright by Walter Chaw Matthew Modine has made a career of acting the idiosyncratic man of action--that scattershot chortle masking some unusual skill and the kind of laconic intelligence that Eric Stoltz has utilized to far different effect. Peaking early as Pvt. Joker in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (and scoring a couple times before that in the deceptively interesting Vision Quest and Alan Parker's moody war idyll Birdy), Modine has treaded water ever since in stuff like Cutthroat Island and Bye Bye Love while actually appearing as himself in a couple of films (Notting Hill, Bamboozled)--an indulgence that's never a good sign, with very few exceptions, for an actor still serious about his career. RUNNING TIME 108 minutes MPAA R ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.33:1 LANGUAGES English DD 5.1 English DD 2.0 (Stereo) CC Yes SUBTITLES English REGION 1 DISC TYPE DVD-5 STUDIO Fox RUNNING TIME 92 minutes MPAA R ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.33:1 LANGUAGES...Walter ChawSave the Green Planet! (2003) - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d234db4e970c2016-11-02T23:01:00-05:002016-11-01T15:18:44-05:00Jigureul jikyeora! ***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A starring Shin Ha-gyun, Baik Yun-shik, Hwang Jung-min written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan by Walter Chaw The first third of hyphenate Jeong Joon-hwan's cinematic debut Save the Green Planet! (Jigureul jikyeora!) is sort of like Fargo if David Fincher had directed it, the second third like Sleuth if Terry Gilliam had directed it, and the final third like a mescaline hallucination, complete with a portly/heroic high-wire artist (Sooni (Hwang Jeong-min) and a swarm of murderous bees thrown into action by a jar of royal jelly. There's a crucifixion, entirely unspeakable and lawless references to 2001 and Blade Runner, and, without warning, a flashback to the unhappy childhood of our hero, Lee (Shin Ha-Kyun), composed with a lyrical sadness that brings a wholly-unexpected tear to the eye. Save the Green Planet! has been shot with scary confidence in a style long on provocative evocation and clarity and short on pyrotechnics for their own sake--something astonishing given that the plot revolves around alien invasion, gruesome torture, serial murder, corporate malfeasance, and Korea's tumultuous recent history. It's indescribable, is what I'm trying to say, but I do know that I was rapt through two...Walter ChawThe Skeleton Key (2005) [Widescreen] - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d2334b7e970c2016-10-29T16:17:15-05:002016-10-29T16:20:06-05:00*/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras C starring Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard screenplay by Ehren Kruger directed by Iain Softley by Walter Chaw Wait, let me get this straight: black folks want to be white folks? Or is it that black folks have to be white folks because the black folks who could potentially be possessed are too afraid of ghosts to hang around long enough? Screenwriter Ehren Kruger's latest illiterate piece of crap (the degree to which his script for the legitimately effective The Ring was doctored is now the stuff of Hollywood legend) addresses these and other pressing plantation-era questions when he deposits snowflake buttercup Caroline (Kate Hudson) into the heart of bayou country, deep in Angel Heart Louisiana, where every phonograph spins a Dixie Cups platter and every cobwebbed attic has a secret hoodoo room. (Who do? You do.) That it's racist in the way that a lot of privileged white people are racist (casually and ignorantly--see also: Georges Lucas and President Bush) could possibly be defended by arguing that it reflects the naivety of the film's main character, hospice nurse Caroline, positioned as sensitive because she reads Robert Louis Stevenson to her...Walter ChawDr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (2003) [Widescreen] + Gothika (2003) [Widescreen Edition] - DVDstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d2334517970c2016-10-29T15:14:08-05:002016-10-29T15:14:08-05:00The Cat in the Hat ½*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+ starring Mike Myers, Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston, Dakota Fanning screenplay by Alec Berg & David Mandel & Jeff Schaffer, based on the Dr. Seuss book directed by Bo Welch GOTHIKA */**** Image A Sound A Extras B- starring Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Charles Dutton, John Carroll Lynch screenplay by Sebastian Gutierrez directed by Mathieu Kassovitz by Walter Chaw The vaguely infernal Dr. Seuss classic is given an overtly infernal treatment in the most excruciating rape of a beloved childhood memory since The Grinch (another Brian Grazer abomination), the replacement of director Ron Howard for production designer Bo Welch a case of bad for worse. I'd love to be able to say that The Cat in the Hat is inexplicable because I'd love to be able to be naïve about why and how films like this are made, but I fear by now I'm all too familiar with ideas of populism, condescension, the supremacy of opening weekend box-office, and the toxic belief that entertainment for children needn't hold up to the same kind of scrutiny as entertainment for non-children. Byzantine in the number of ways in which it...Walter ChawBook of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) - DVD + CDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b7c8a97ee1970b2016-10-29T14:06:10-05:002016-10-29T14:06:10-05:00*½/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras B- starring Jeffrey Donovan, Kim Director, Erica Leerhsen, Tristine Skyler screenplay by Dick Beebe and Joe Berlinger directed by Joe Berlinger by Bill Chambers Despite the brainy posturing of director/co-writer Joe Berlinger, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 will probably never be canonized in a sequel debate, that lunchtime activity of film freaks everywhere which has brought a nerdish ascendancy to, among the handful, The Godfather Part II and The Empire Strikes Back. Why? Well, for starters, it's pretentious as hell; when the DVD liner notes--written by no less than Berlinger himself--for a fast-tracked cash-grab include such descriptive phrases as "mollify the cynics" and "post-modern approach," you know you're in for everything but a good time. RUNNING TIME 90 minutes MPAA R ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.85:1 (16x9-enhanced) LANGUAGES English DD 5.1 French Dolby Surround Spanish Dolby Surround CC Yes SUBTITLES None REGION 1 DISC TYPE DVD-9/CD STUDIO Artisan Scream 2--a self-reflexive sequel whose box-office success arguably had greater bearing on the decision to make Book of Shadows than The Blair Witch Project did--established what I consider two definitive rules about second instalments to which Book of Shadows actually adheres: The body count is bigger The...Bill ChambersThe Grudge (2004) - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b7c8a940dc970b2016-10-28T19:50:15-05:002016-10-28T19:50:22-05:00*/**** Image B Sound A- Extras A- starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, KaDee Strickland, Clea DuVall screenplay by Stephen Susco, based on a screenplay by Takashi Shimizu directed by Takashi Shimizu by Walter Chaw Fans of Takashi Shimizu's Japanese horror franchise Ju-On, rest assured that his English-language but still Tokyo-set version of The Grudge is laudably faithful to the source material. So faithful, in fact, that The Grudge is completely free of those tedious drags character development, tension, scenario, narrative, plot, intelligence, point, sociological relevance, technical aptitude, and scares, really, since it leaves "pacing" somewhere back where the rest of that stuff was jettisoned. What The Grudge has a lot of, though, are "jump scares," the cats-through-windows thing where somebody crawls around in an attic with a lighter because they've heard an ominous knocking and then a face appears in the gloom accompanied by a sting note on the soundtrack. RUNNING TIME 91 minutes MPAA PG-13 ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.81:1 (16x9-enhanced) LANGUAGES English DD 5.1 CC Yes SUBTITLES English French Spanish REGION 1 DISC TYPE DVD-9 STUDIO Sony It doesn't take any wit to surprise people--it would tax my imagination not one bit to run up to someone in the...Bill ChambersThe Calling (2000) - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b7c8a92848970b2016-10-28T15:41:25-05:002016-10-28T15:41:25-05:00**/**** Image C Sound C starring Laura Harris, Richard Lintern, Francis Magee, Alice Krige screenplay by John Rice & Rudy Gaines directed by Richard Caesar by Walter Chaw A retelling of Polanski's creep classic Rosemary's Baby that plays more like its high-profile carbon copy The Astronaut's Wife, Richard Caesar's direct-to-video The Calling most recalls the good-bad Richard Donner movie The Omen. While that speaks to a small measure of gritty genre credibility, it still doesn't forgive The Calling's many failings (including the lack of a dynamic villain figure and a distended second act) by a long shot. But at the least, The Calling doesn't spend any time trying to be something other than an apocalyptic demon spawn flick, and that honesty of modest intention forgives a multitude of sins. RUNNING TIME 89 minutes MPAA R ASPECT RATIO(S) 1.33:1 LANGUAGES English DD 2.0 (Stereo) CC Yes SUBTITLES Spanish REGION 1 DISC TYPE DVD-5 STUDIO Artisan It's high cheese of the best kind, complete with gratuitous guinea-pig violence, tragically comprehensive narration directed to a priest ("I had to get him, Father, and I had no time to lose"), and a budget-inspired reticence to indulge in graphic gore. Its thrills are more giggle-inducing...Bill ChambersLights Out (2016) - Blu-ray Disctag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b7c8a8dabd970b2016-10-28T12:03:57-05:002016-10-28T15:11:01-05:00*/**** Image A- Sound A Extras D+ starring Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Alexander DiPersia, Maria Bello screenplay by Eric Heisserer, based on the short film by David F. Sandberg directed by David F. Sandberg by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. This year's Brian Helgeland Award, named in honour of the man who wrote the Oscar- and Golden Raspberry-winning L.A. Confidential and The Postman, respectively, in the same year, goes to Eric Heisserer, who has somehow written one of the year's best movies about motherhood, Arrival, and one of its worst, Lights Out. Lights Out is not a good movie about anything, really (save perhaps the value of crank flashlights); as with the Heisserer-penned remakes of The Thing and A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Lights Out screenplay is joylessly aspirational in the way of a personal assistant doing menial chores to accumulate credit--the thankless task in this case adapting David F. Sandberg's simple but effective micro-short of the same name. That director Sandberg opted not to write it himself implies the short was intended as a calling-card rather than a proof-of-concept, and his direction of the feature hardly evolves its meat-and-potatoes style. He created a monster and now he's...Bill ChambersThe Cabinet of Caligari (1962) - DVDtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01bb09491b24970d2016-10-22T20:53:57-05:002016-10-22T20:57:31-05:00**/**** Image B+ Sound B starring Glynis Johns, Dan O'Herlihy, Dick Davalos, Lawrence Dobkin screenplay by Robert Bloch directed by Roger Kay by Alex Jackson SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. The first thing we gotta do is get past the title. Contrary to popular belief (as exhibited in Pauline Kael's tome 5001 Nights at the Movies), The Cabinet of Caligari does not share its title with the classic 1920 Robert Wiene film. You're thinking of The Cabinet of DR. Caligari--emphasis my own. That being said, I have no right to be a prick about this, as every time I've typed "The Cabinet of Caligari" I've found myself instinctively inserting "Dr.". RUNNING TIME 105 minutes MPAA Not Rated ASPECT RATIO(S) 2.35:1 (16x9-enhanced) 1.33:1 LANGUAGES English DD 2.0 (Stereo) English DD 2.0 (Mono) Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono) CC Yes SUBTITLES English Spanish REGION 1 DISC TYPE DVD-10 STUDIO Fox Save those four central words from the title, a single visual effect, and a twist ending, The Cabinet of Caligari has absolutely nothing in common with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. One fast determines that it's neither a remake nor a "re-envisioning" of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and so there is absolutely no...Bill ChambersOuija: Origin of Evil (2016)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c01b8d22faeef970c2016-10-22T12:48:51-05:002016-10-22T12:52:50-05:00***½/**** starring Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson, Henry Thomas written by Mike Flanagan & Jeff Howard directed by Mike Flanagan by Walter Chaw Because distribution is the ridiculous trash fire it is sometimes, Mike Flanagan, through circumstance, misadventure, and good old-fashioned industriousness, had three films ready for release in 2016: Hush, Before I Wake, and Ouija: Origin of Evil (hereafter Ouija 2). I've only seen Hush and Ouija 2 thus far--it looks like Before I Wake has been delayed yet again--but I can say that when taken with his first two films, the moody Absentia and the excellent Oculus, Flanagan is already at the forefront of the new American horror revolution. His movies are drum-tight. He isn't afraid of the high-concept. He makes smart use of minimal exposition and narrative ellipsis, and he embraces the inexplicable and the uncanny. Better, there is at work in Flanagan's pictures this undercurrent of grief, tied together with the thought that perhaps these intimations of immortality are bound snug with the dementing tortures of unimaginable loss. The supernatural is mainly considered, after all, upon the death of loved ones, and so it is that Ouija 2's Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) makes a living with...Walter Chaw